For the first time in 150 years, a President is defying the Supreme Court.
Last Sunday, April 13, 2025 President Trump announced that he would defy an Order of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court Order, which was unanimous, requires the Trump Administration to return to the United States a Maryland mam– Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia- to the United States from a Prison [actually a death camp] in El Salvador.
Garcia had been granted asylum and was therefore legally in the US; there was also a Court Order prohibiting ICE from deporting him. Despite these protections, ICE agents kidnapped Garcia [along with others] and secretly sent him to a Prison in El Salvador. The kidnapping occurred without notice to his family or judicial due process. His American born wife only learned of the kidnapping after hiring an attorney. The only evidence against him was that he was wearing a Chicago Bulls Sweatshirt. [I am not making that up]. The Justice Department later admitted in Court that the kidnapping was a mistake.
Note: [The Attorney who admitted the mistake in court was demoted, on the grounds that he defied an order from his superiors directing him to lie to the court. Lying in court by an attorney is grounds for disbarment].
Until now, actions by the Government to ‘”disappear” a person only occurred in dictatorships or totalitarian regimes.
After the kidnapping, a federal district Court twice ordered Gacia to be returned, along with several other judicial orders regarding the case. The Trump administration defied all of the District Court orders. Prior to Trump, Presidential defiance of a Court Order had not occurred since Richard Nixon, 51 years ago.
The Supreme Court acted swiftly; by a Unanimous vote they ordered the government to immediately return Gacia, and to provide due process before taking further action. They also ruled unanimously that the government could not send anyone to an El Salvador prison, without judicial due process, indicating that the other 200 deportations were also illegal.
On Monday, on National TV, Donald Trump stated that he would refuse to comply. Other Administration Officials, including Vice President Vance, have also stated the Courts cannot require the President to take any actions. [Vance went to Harvard Law School under an affirmative action program; passing a class on the Constitution as a prerequisite to graduation]. Attorney General Pam Bondi had the audacity to claim that the Supreme Court “didn’t mean it.” [I look forward to the Saturday Night Live Parody].
Since Marbury v. Madison in 1801, the power of the supreme court to interpret the Constitution and limit Presidential power has been firmly established. No President in 150 years has disputed that concept. The drafters of the Constitution believed that the limitation of the power of the Executive was the most important issue addressed in the Constitution; it was` one of the major arguments used for ratification. In particular, they feared that a demagogue, appealing to the base instincts of the people, was the greatest threat to liberty; the separation of powers, the foundation of the Constitution, was designed primarily to limit presidential power. As Alexander Hamilton noted in Federalist Paper No. 51:
To what expediance, then, shall we finally resort to maintaining in practice the necessary partition of power among the several departments, as laid down in the Constitution? The only answer that can be given is ….the defect must be supplied, by so contriving the interior structure of the government as that its several constituent parts may, by their mutual relations, be the means of keeping each other in their proper places.
The great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others…. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition….
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.
I expect that the Supreme Court will immediately act to reissue the Order and demand compliance. The Question is: what if Trump still refuses to comply? If the Republican Party was patriotic, Congress would unanimously vote to impeach and convict, but I don’t believe in the Easter Bunny. I fear that the Republican Party has, in reality, become the Republican Nazi party.
Trumps continued defiance is the end of Americas 250-year experiment as a democracy. It is up to us to act. Many of us have ancestors or relatives who defended democracy against the Nazis in World War Two. We owe it to them and our children to protect democracy; I do not know the strategy, but any non-violent action is justified. History will judge us.
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